want to precipitate it by any action of his own for fear that a
sufficiently fierce flash of pain would make him pass out.
Under considerable pressure, jets of burning gasoline were squirting
from one of the riddled pumps, splashing like molten lava onto the
blacktop. The pavement sloped toward the busy street, and scintillant
rivers of fire spread in that direction.
The explosion had ignited the roof of the portico that sheltered the
pumps.
Flames licked rapidly toward the main building.
The Lexus was on fire. The lunatic bastard had destroyed his own car,
which in some strange way made him seem more completely out of control
and dangerous than anything else he’d done.
Amid the inferno, which became more panoramic by the second as the
gasoline streamed across the blacktop, the killer was nowhere to be
seen. Maybe he’d regained at least some of his senses and fled on
foot.
More likely, he was in the two-bay garage, coming at them by that route
rather than making a bold approach through the shattered front
entrance. Less than fifteen feet from Jack, a painted metal door
connected the garage to the office. It was closed.
Leaning against the counter, he gripped his revolver in both hands and
aimed at the door, arms extended rigidly in front of him, ready to blow
the perp to hell at the first opportunity. His hands were shaking. So
cold. He strained to hold the gun steady, which helped, but he
couldn’t entirely repress the tremors.
The darkness at the edges of his vision had retreated. Now it began to
encroach again. He blinked furiously, trying to wash away the
frightening peripheral blindness as he might have tried to expel a
speck of dust, but to no avail.
The air smelled of gasoline and hot tar. Shifting wind blew smoke into
the room–not much, just enough to make him want to cough. He clenched
his teeth, making only a low choking sound in his throat, because the
killer might be on the far side of the door, hesitating and
listening.
Still directing the revolver squarely at the entrance from the garage,
he glanced outside into whirlwinds of tempestuous fire and churning
shrouds of black smoke, afraid he was wrong. The gunman might erupt,
after all, from that conflagration, like a demon out of perdition.
The metal door again. Painted the palest blue. Like deep clear water
seen through a layer of crystalline ice.
The color made him cold. Everything made him cold–the hollow
iron-hard thunk-thunk of his laboring heart, the whisper-soft weeping
of the woman huddled on the floor behind him, the glittering debris of
broken glass. Even the roar and crackle of the fire chilled him.
Outside, seething flames had traveled the length of the portico and
reached the front of the service station. The roof must be ablaze by
now.
The pale-blue door.
Open it, you crazy sonofabitch. Come on, come on, come on.
Another explosion.
He had to turn his head completely away from the door to the garage and
look directly at the front of the station to see what had happened,
because he had lost nearly all of his peripheral vision.
The fuel tank of the Lexus. The vehicle was engulfed, reduced to just
the black skeleton of a car enwrapped by greedy tongues of fire that
stripped it of its lustrous emerald paint, fine leather upholstery, and
other plush appointments.
The blue door remained closed.
The revolver seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. His arms ached. He
couldn’t hold the weapon steady. Could barely hold it at all.
He wanted to lie down and close his eyes. Sleep a little. Dream a
little dream green pastures, wildflowers, a blue sky, the city long
forgotten.
When he looked down at his leg, he discovered he was standing in a pool
of blood. An artery must have been nicked, maybe torn, and he was
going fast, dizzy just from looking down, nausea swelling anew, a
trembling in his gut.
Fire on the roof. He could hear it overhead, distinctly different from
the crackle and roar of the blaze in front of the station, shingles
popping, rafters creaking as construction joints were tortured by the